A National Anti-doping Agency (NADA) team on Saturday conducted a surprise raid at the Central Regional Centre of SAI in Bhopal, in the wake of a doping scandal that rocked the country a couple of weeks ago.
|Last Updated: Jul 16, 2011, 06:01 PM IST|Source: Bureau
New Delhi: Continuing its drive to catch
drug cheats following the athletics doping scandal, National
Anti-Doping Agency today conducted its third raid in a week at
a Sports Authority of India facility with a surprise early
morning swoop down at the Bhopal Centre.
A NADA team, headed by Manpal Singh, began the raid at
8am, checked the rooms of the trainees at the Centre for
banned substances and took random urine samples from them.
"NADA deputed a team of officers today, the 16th July
2011, from Delhi and Bhopal headed by Mr Manpal Singh and
included two technical officers of NADA and two lady Doping
Control Officers to conduct surprise check in SAI Bhopal,"
NADA Director General Rahul Bhatnagar said in a statement.
"The team reached the SAI centre at 8:00 am and checked
rooms of sportspersons for banned substances and also took
urine sample on a random basis," the statement said.
"Twentyfive urine samples -- wushu (5 men, 5 women),
boxing (5 women), judo (5 women), hockey (3 women), watersport
(2 women) -- were also taken on a random basis and will be
sent to National Dope Testing Laboratory for testing,"
Bhatnagar said.
The team checked 38 rooms (10 women and 28 men) of
sportspersons at the hostels. Samples of food supplements and
other medicines found in seven rooms were sealed and brought
for testing.
NADA said it would continue its drive against doping in
sports in the country and surprise checks will be carried out
at other centers where athletes are training.
NADA teams conducted surprise raids at the National
Institute of Sports at Patiala on July 9 and at the Bangalore
SAI Centre two days later. On both occasions, the NADA team
took samples from the trainees and brought medicines and food
supplements for testing.
The country was hit by one of its worst doping scandals
with eight track and field athletes, including Asian Games
double gold medallist Ashwini Akkunji, returning positive for
banned anabolic substances.
Ashwini`s Commonwealth and Asian Games gold-winning relay
team-mates Mandeep Kaur and Sini Jose, other top quartermilers
Jauna Murmu, Tiana Mary Thomas and Priyanka Panwar, long
jumper Hari Krishnan Muralidharan and shot putter Sonia tested
positive for anabolic steroids.
All of them returned positive in tests conducted by the
NADA while Mandeep and Jauna also failed tests conducted by
the IAAF.
Following the dope scandal, Ukrainian coach Yuri
Ogrodnik, whose six wards were among the eight dope cheats,
was sacked by the Sports Ministry which also constituted a
one-man inquiry committee of Justice (Retd) Mukul Mudgal to
probe into the scandal.
Six of the eight dope-tainted athletes now face a maximum
two-year ban after their confirmatory `B` samples also tested
positive. Muralidharan and Sonia are yet to test their `B`
samples.
PTI
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